


Three Weeks Vacation

by narcissablaxk



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Kisses, christmas in july
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21788263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: He did, in fact, try to wipe the look off of his face, but only half succeeded; instead he was still looking at her like he did when he thought Phryne couldn’t see, full of wonder and a little bit of confusion. She wanted to ask him about it, prod and poke until he was honest, but now was not the time.Such was the mantra of their entire relationship.
Relationships: Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 150





	Three Weeks Vacation

Christmas in July was Phryne Fisher’s favorite holiday. Not because of the presents, or the food, or the parties, but because it was Jane and Dot’s favorite holiday. All throughout the month of July, Dottie and Jane could be found decorating the tree (one Phryne had shipped over and set up in her parlour especially for them), baking Christmas cookies, sipping hot cocoa, and singing carols with Bert and Cec. 

Generally, Phryne was exempt from most of those Christmas traditions; she was usually working a case, since crime naturally spiked during the holiday seasons, and the aftermath of such did not leave her feeling particularly jolly. That is, unless Mr. Butler was around with a stiff drink to help the jollies along. 

This year was different: she had managed, somehow, to avoid being hired to solve a case, both of the murderous or domestic variety, and in so doing had let Dot and Jane rope her into more merry activities. The traditions were fun, of course, but they bordered on the frivolous kind of activities that she had been pressured to do as a typical society woman, and Phryne could only stomach them for so long.

Just today, she had been awoken at a reasonable hour, eaten breakfast, gotten dressed (Dot had set out a deep maroon set of trousers and silk shirt, one of her favorites), hung some ornaments on the unfinished tree, and lounged in her parlour, reading a book she had already read several times before. She was drowning in ennui, and by mid-afternoon, she was quickly deciding that this simply could not go on any longer.

“Hugh said he would stop by after work to help put the star on the top of the tree,” Dottie said, bent diligently over the gingerbread cookies she was artfully decorating. “After dinner, Miss, if that’s alright.” 

“Of course it’s alright,” Phryne answered graciously, swiping an un-iced cookie out from the wire rack. It was still warm, and she gently moved her fingers around the edges to avoid getting burned. “Did Constable Collins say…anyone else was coming with him?” 

“I can ask if the Inspector is coming –”

“No, Dot, don’t do that,” Phryne said, pulling off a piece of the cookie and putting it in her mouth. She chewed pensively before she added, “These are really very good.” 

“Thank you, Miss,” Dot answered, her brow furrowed and all mention of the Inspector forgotten. Phryne took a moment to study her profile before taking her leave, gingerbread man in hand. 

It had been at least three weeks since she had worked a case with Inspector Robinson, and if she were being truthful (which she only did in the confines of her own thoughts), she missed it. The work, of course, and the company. 

Standing in the foyer, Phryne considered, if only momentarily, not being spontaneous. But, she thought, reaching for her favorite red hat, what fun was that? She finished off the last bit of the cookie she stole and reached for her keys.

“Dot!” She called, pulling the front door open with a flourish. “I’m going out. I’ll be back in time for dinner.” 

“Yes, Miss!” she heard softly before the door closed behind her. 

***

“I don’t know what to tell you, Miss Fisher,” Constable Collins said genially. “The case we’re on is almost wrapped up. We don’t need any help.” 

Phryne leaned against the desk, her gloved hands clutched around the edge. “Surely there’s something I can do,” she said, teetering the border of begging. “Questioning? Analyzing a crime scene? Talking to a witness? Hugh, I’ll do the paperwork,” she said, reaching for the paper Hugh was writing on. Barely and gracelessly, he slid it away from her greedy hands. 

“That’s illegal, Miss,” he chastised gently, but there was a smile playing at the corner of his mouth all the same. 

She groaned, playfully enough that the Constable’s secret smile grew into a full grin, and sighed. “Hugh, Dot would never forgive you if you let her employer die of boredom. Would she?” 

“She wouldn’t, Miss,” Hugh agreed. 

“And we all live to make Dot happy, don’t we?” Phryne needled. 

“We do, Miss,” Hugh answered with a laugh. “The Inspector is in his office, if you want entertainment.” 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Phryne said, fixing her hat and leaning over the desk to see that the Inspector’s door was, indeed, ajar. “What’s he doing?” 

“Paperwork, I’m sure,” Hugh shrugged. “He’s always working.” 

Phryne stifled a scoff. Inspector Robinson, always working? She seemed to recall several occasions when that was the exact opposite of true, but since Hugh had all but given her permission to interrupt Jack in whatever he was doing, she chose to keep quiet. 

“I’ll just go…check on him, then,” she said to Hugh, who gave her a knowing look. 

“Please do, Miss.” 

The Inspector was indeed working when Phryne gently pushed the door open with her foot. He was hunched over a piece of paper, his handwriting scrawled all over it, as illegible as he remembered. 

“I can hear you, Miss Fisher,” he said, his voice deep and gruff and a little less welcoming than Phryne was used to. “Come in if you’re going to come in.” 

She did, letting the door fall back into its original position behind her. “Those are some deep furrows in your brow, Inspector,” she said, watching as Jack studiously tried to rearrange his face into something different. “Something on your mind?” 

“Something is always on my mind when I’m at work, Miss Fisher,” he pointed out. “As it should be.” 

“Pish posh, you hardly look that vexed when I’m helping you on a case,” she said airily, hoping her lightness would persuade him to look less serious. 

It did not. 

“Miss Fisher, when I’m working with you, I am the definition of vexed,” he said, turning his eyes back to his work. Phryne could see tracks in his usually coiffed hair, created by his fingers running through it again and again. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, forgoing her usual banter. Jack glanced up from the pages on his desk, the furrows in his brow rearranged to look something like surprised. “Wipe that look off your face, Jack, I can tell when something’s bothering you.” 

He did, in fact, try to wipe the look off of his face, but only half succeeded; instead he was still looking at her like he did when he thought Phryne couldn’t see, full of wonder and a little bit of confusion. She wanted to ask him about it, prod and poke until he was honest, but now was not the time. 

Such was the mantra of their entire relationship. 

“It’s this case –” he began, and Phryne was at his side in a flash, her hands reaching for the file underneath his own notes. “It all looks straightforward enough, but something about it…it doesn’t feel right.” 

“Hmm,” she said, turning toward him to sit on the edge of his desk. “Tell me about it.” 

“We found Henry Blythe in his home, dead by what looks like strangulation. Ligature marks indicate that he was strangled with a length of rope.” Phryne flipped through the photographs, her fingers carefully turning over the picture of the body, a forty-something year old man on his back, bruises around his neck. Even without a magnifier, she could see the pattern the rope made on his neck. 

“His wife and son have a flimsy alibi, and with a little pushing, the wife’s alibi crumbled. She said she was out to dinner with one of her friends, but one of her friends claims that she left dinner early, claiming she felt sick. If she left the dinner early, that gives her the perfect opportunity to come home and strangle her husband.” 

“Why would she strangle him?” Phryne asked. “What’s her motive?” 

“According to the son, he beat her,” Jack said. Phryne tensed, as she always did, and Jack tried not to notice, like he always did. Gently, without looking, he put a hand on Phryne’s knee. “She has no alibi, she has motive, but she still says she didn’t do it.” 

“You didn’t get a confession?” Phryne asked. 

“No, but the Commissioner wants it wrapped up quickly because of the holiday,” Jack said helplessly, squeezing her knee before pulling his hand back. “He doesn’t want any concerned citizens calling him on his vacation and ruining it.” 

“That’s not a good enough reason,” Phryne agreed, flipping through the statements. She stopped on one, and after scanning it, pulled it out of the folder. “This friend, the one the wife was having dinner with.” 

“Yes?” Jack asked, leaning close to see the page she was holding. He was so close she could smell his aftershave; simple and woodsy and by now, so familiar it smelled like home. Phryne cleared her throat and continued.

“She says that she finished her meal at Café Replique at eight in the evening, but Anatole doesn’t serve dinner that late,” she said. “He closes the restaurant at 6:30 to give artists a place to paint. No patrons are in the restaurant past 7 p.m., no exceptions.” 

Jack grabbed the statement and scanned it again. “You’re sure,” he said, but he already sounded convinced. 

“Positive, Jack, he had the same policy back in France.” 

“So the friend was lying,” Jack breathed, looking back up at Phryne. “But why?” 

“Why indeed?” Phryne asked. “Was the friend fond of Henry Blythe?” 

“No connection, as far as we could tell,” Jack said, indicating the file. “Pauline, the wife, had been friends with Isobel for years, even before she met her husband. Isobel never gave any indication that she knew anything about Pauline’s home life with Henry, or even about her son.” 

“She’d been friends with Pauline for that long and never met her husband or her son?” Phryne asked. Something was suspicious here, something she’d seen before. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” 

Jack shrugged. “Sure, but some people are…covetous of their friends,” he said, his eyes dropping away from hers and landing on her knee. 

“Not that covetous,” Phryne said softly, and his gaze snapped up to hers again. “I think you need to talk to Isobel again. Pauline isn’t guilty, but I think I know why she hasn’t implicated Isobel yet.” 

“Why?” Jack asked, but she could see on his face that he already knew. He just wanted to hear her say it. 

So she obliged him. “Love.” 

***

“Miss, I didn’t think you’d make it,” Dot said happily, a dish of potatoes in her hand. “Dinner is on the table.” 

“I’ll be right there, Dot,” Phryne said, hanging her hat and coat on the peg by the door. She felt invigorated, reenergized by her casework at the police station, and suddenly, taking part in Christmas in July festivities sounded engaging and fun.

“The Inspector didn’t come with you?” Dot asked, holding a plate and set of silverware in her hand, always prepared. 

Phryne shook her head. “Why would he?” she asked. 

“Miss, you only go out alone and for a long time if you’re seeing the Inspector,” Dot replied with a shrug. “And usually he comes by for a nightcap.” 

“I did ask if the Inspector wanted to come for dinner, but he’s busy interviewing a suspect in his latest case,” Phryne admitted. “But he might stop by later.” She slid into her seat and let Mr. Butler drop a napkin over her lap. “We might be able to package up some of this Christmas roast for him, mightn’t we, Mr. Butler? Who knows what that man eats when we don’t feed him.” 

“Yes, Miss,” Mr. Butler said with a smile. 

***

Jack didn’t come. 

Phryne held out hope, though she mentioned it to no one but herself, that he would appear with Hugh when he came to put the star at the top of the tree. But Hugh arrived alone, and he gave her a sad, slight smile that made Phryne squirm in her seat in spite of herself. She didn’t like being read by people; she only liked to read people herself. 

She hoped he would simply be late, but the night dragged on, and the carols turned into silly drinking songs, and Jane went up to bed, and the house slowly dwindled down to a quiet lull, and the Inspector was nowhere to be seen.

“I’ve packaged up some Christmas roast for the Inspector,” Mr. Butler said, holding out a glass of bourbon for Phryne to take. “It will certainly keep until tomorrow.” 

“Thank you, Mr. B,” Phryne said weakly, taking a sip of the bourbon. It burned the whole way down, as it usually did, and it gave her the necessary resolve to pull her up from the chaise lounge and upstairs, where she changed into her silk pajamas and robe and fell into bed. 

She was annoyed at herself; how many times had a man kept her up, only to leave her disappointed? Men didn’t disappoint Phryne Fisher. They either pleased her or didn’t, and when they didn’t, she didn’t bother with them anymore. That was the mechanics of it, and as a routine, it functioned seamlessly. That is, until Jack bloody Robinson. 

How many times did she stay up while the household went to bed to wait for Lin Chung? Never. The thought alone was ridiculous. Yet here she was, sitting on the edge of her bed, contemplating going downstairs for just a few more minutes. 

She wouldn’t do it; she was too stubborn. Instead, she pulled back the sheets on her bed and slid in, trying to enjoy the relative comforts her bed provided. Instead, she stewed on the fact that Jack had, essentially, stood her up. He hadn’t, really, he told her he would try to come, but that usually meant that he would be there. 

He hadn’t even called. 

For a moment, Phryne was seized by the paralyzing thought that something terrible had happened to her Inspector, and he was somewhere, captured and injured, hoping that she would realize something was wrong because he had never called. 

“Ridiculous, fanciful thinking,” she thought to herself, burrowing deeper into bed. 

She was just barely starting to drift off when a knock shook her awake. She sat there, eyes wide open in the dark, waiting for what she was sure was coming. 

“Miss Fisher, I’m sorry, but the Inspector is here,” Mr. Butler’s voice was soft, apologetic, and Phryne felt a rush of affection for him. “Should I tell him to come back tomorrow?” 

“Of course not,” she said, pulling her robe tightly around her shoulders. “See him into the parlour, Mr. Butler, I’ll be right there.” 

He was sitting in his regular place, face turned toward the Christmas tree, his hat in his hand. Mr. Butler must have turned on the Christmas lights, because they were twinkling in the darkness, the only light source beyond the light in the foyer. 

She stood in the doorway and watched him, the way he nervously turned his hat in his hands, the way he watched the lights with almost childlike wonder. He looked far less beleaguered than he had earlier in the day, and lifted weight from his shoulders finally made him look like the Inspector she had been hoping to see. 

“I can hear you,” he said softly, so softly she almost missed it. She stepped more completely into the room, her bare feet making no noise on the floor.

“You never struck me as someone who enjoyed Christmas in July,” she said in response. He turned to greet her, standing and leaving his hat behind on the chaise as he did. “Too frivolous for you?” 

“Work keeps it from being enjoyable,” he answered, his eyes smiling more than his mouth. “The light on your face –” he stopped himself, leaving Phryne with the opportunity to tease him, or grant him mercy. 

She granted him mercy. “The case –?”

“Isobel confessed,” Jack said, relieved. Phryne sat on the chaise lounge, and Jack followed, sitting gingerly on the edge, close enough that their knees were pressed together, like conspirators. Like they were telling secrets. “Henry was beating Pauline, and Isobel couldn’t stand to see the woman she loved hurt any longer.” 

“An honorable thing,” Phryne said softly. 

“It’s still murder,” Jack said, but there was no weight behind the words. 

“She was protecting her love,” Phryne insisted. “She did the best she could.” After a moment: “Will she hang?” 

Jack pursed his lips at her, the way he did every time she got too invested in a case. “I spoke to the district attorney and told him about the situation with Henry’s domestic abuse. They will not hang her, but she will probably go to jail.” 

“But she’ll get out,” Phryne pressed, and Jack smiled, suddenly and completely, and Phryne was struck silent. He tilted his head toward her, his hair fixed (when did he have time to do that?), and ducked his chin, as if to hide the smile Phryne had already seen. “What?” she asked. 

“Who would you kill for?” he asked, instead of answering her question. 

“A great many people,” she answered honestly. “To protect them.” 

“Not to protect them,” Jack corrected. “Who would you kill for? The same why Isobel killed for Pauline?” 

“Why are you asking?” She asked. She knew the answer. He knew the answer. He just wanted to hear her say it. 

“Humor me,” he said. “Who would you kill for?” 

“Jane,” she said firmly. “Dottie. Mac. Hugh. Mr. Butler. Cec. Burt,” she paused. “You.” 

“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he said, but the little wrinkles near his eyes told her he was trying not to smile. 

“Don’t be,” she said, her previous annoyance already forgotten when Jack was here, lit by the Christmas tree and honest and real, close enough to touch. 

“I am anyway,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave Isobel alone in the cells, so I called Pauline to come stay with her until she’s moved to another facility. I had to wait for her to get there.” 

“You…you called Pauline?” Phryne asked. “Isn’t that…?” 

“Frowned upon in the Victoria Constabulary?” He finished. “Definitely. But I knew it’s what you would have done.” 

Sometimes, Jack Robinson managed to surprise her so completely she had nothing to say. She sat there, on her chaise lounge, half in the dark, her knee burning where it was pressed to Jack’s, her brain itching to say something, to do something, but she couldn’t. What could she possibly say that could be any better than that? 

“Ahh, I’ve rendered the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher speechless,” Jack’s voice was quiet, probably so he wouldn’t wake the rest of the house, but it only made it deeper, rougher, and somehow more delicate. “A rare moment indeed.” 

“I missed you tonight,” she finally said, and Jack turned toward her, as completely as he could, so Phryne could look nowhere else but at him. 

“I’ve missed you for three weeks,” he replied, and Phryne laughed. 

“You’re not usually so frank with me, Inspector,” she teased lightly. 

“It is a dangerous game to play,” he agreed. “But I suppose we’ll call that your Christmas in July gift.” 

“Really?” Phryne asked playfully. “You know that means I’m obligated, by the rules of society, to give you something in return?” 

Jack’s mouth twitched, like she’d said exactly what he wanted her to say. Most of their conversations were like that – a dance that only they knew the steps for, though they’d never practiced it. 

“I know what I want, Miss Fisher.”

She didn’t have to ask him what he meant; he was already gazing at her lips, waiting for her permission to come closer. That was one of the many things Jack did that made Phryne weak – he was polite and patient. Never would he presume to know what she wanted unless she told him clearly and openly. 

“Come and take it, then,” she challenged. 

He pressed his lips to her cheek before he came to her lips, his touch gentle and admiring. He kissed her lips once, twice, both slow and languid, like he was in no hurry, before pressing soft kisses to her jaw, one hand cradling her cheek, the other around her back. She pulled him back to her mouth impatiently, making sure to drink her fill before he decided he had pushed propriety enough for the evening, as gentlemen often do. Phryne was, at her core, greedy when it came to Inspector Robinson, and even during Christmas, she was hard-pressed to be generous. She ran her hands through his hair, letting one hand rest on the back of his neck, the other sliding underneath his ever proper suit jacket. He followed her lead, pushing one side of her robe down so he could kiss her bare shoulder.

All too soon, he was pulling away, his other hand rising from her back to cup her other cheek. “I should go,” he said. “It’s late.” 

She knew better than to argue. But she took consolation in the fact that she’d managed to thoroughly ruin his hair again. She observed it smugly. 

“Come by tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he replied, sliding into the foyer to grab his coat, Phryne holding onto his hat. He slid the coat on, reaching for the hat with his fingers, but Phryne held it behind his back. 

“Perhaps I should keep this as ransom so I know you’ll come back,” she said as he reached for it again. 

With a quiet growl of faux-exasperation, Jack nudged her to the front door and pressed her against it, kissing her still bare shoulder and neck just enough to distract her from his hat. He reclaimed it triumphantly, kissing Phryne one more time on the lips for good measure. 

“You know me, Miss Fisher,” he said ruefully. “I can never stay away.”


End file.
